October 16, 2016
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
1These are the words of
the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining
elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people,
whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
4Thus
says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent
into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in
them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have
sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in
marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not
decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you
into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will
find your welfare.
Sermon: “A Town Called
Welfare”
I
met the prophet Jeremiah last Wednesday evening, after chime rehearsal, in
Vass. Ok, so his name wasn’t Jeremiah
and he wasn’t a “he,” but still, there she was, Jeremiah, right off the pages
of scripture.
I
first encountered this Jeremiah (whose name I never found out) at the Dollar
General as I bought laundry detergent.
She was in front of me in the check out line, with a friend. The friend appeared to be in old pajamas. She wore tattered capri jeans, old sandals
and a dirty t-shirt. I could see that
she had a hard time standing, as her ankle was red and swollen-looking. Both she and her friend had something of a dazed
look in their eyes. I’ll admit that my
first thought was drugs. I’m not proud
of that. I was to learn later they were
under the influence of something else: trauma.
We didn’t speak, but God wasn’t done with my Jeremiah interaction, and
so when I went to Valenti’s to pick up food for my dinner, in walked Jeremiah.
She
hobbled a bit, was friendly with everyone, and told the woman next to me her
story. She was from Lobelia, and had
been evacuated by a loud speaker waking her from sleep and telling her to
immediately leave her home. The ankle
injury happened as she hopped into a friend’s boat, twisting it badly. She had no idea when she could go home. It’s possible she’s still not home. She looked totally exhausted, a shell of a
person.
And
yet, as she turned to me, her face lit up.
“You look awfully familiar,” she said.
“I just saw you in the Dollar General,” I replied.
“No,
it’s not that…what’s your name? You look
just like a friend of mine from high school.”
We figured out I was not that friend, but smiling all the time, she told
me I looked “all demure and put together sitting there” and complimented my
outfit. These were not words of envy;
they were filled with kindness.
And
as she left, hobbling out with her food, she called back over her shoulder to
me, “God bless!” Her first instinct was
to be a blessing to me, even in the midst of her trauma. I regret that mine was not: I didn’t even
think to check that she and her friend had a safe place to stay that night
until she was already gone.
That
was the last I saw of Jeremiah. I call
her the prophet Jeremiah because they have so very much in common. Jeremiah was in exile from his home; so was
she. Jeremiah had first-hand witnessed
destruction and disaster, not of his own making; so had she. Jeremiah had no idea what the future looked
like or what would happen next; the same was true for her. And, most importantly, Jeremiah spoke words
of hope and kindness, even when glassy-eyed from trauma; so did she. Jeremiah called for exiles to seek the
welfare of the city in which they were exiled; she did just that, spreading
kindness and blessing wherever she went.
So
often, the book of Jeremiah, especially this chapter, is used as a
pop-Christian culture promise of God’s provision, sold at Hobby Lobby on
artfully painted, expensive wall hangings, “I know the plans I have for you,
plans for a future with hope” they read.
But these words were never meant for people who could afford to buy them
as inspirational art for their walls. These
words were meant for a people who had no walls, a people in exile who didn’t
know if the meager home they called theirs would still be standing when they
finally returned.
My
former professor, Kathleen O’Connor, captures Jeremiah’s powerful vision best,
writing, “…Jeremiah promises a future
beyond the death of the nation, a future that is open-ended, uncertain, and
just over the horizon. That future will
come because God, whom they thought had punished them, failed them, or left
them, was still there, still loving, and still yearning for them.
Jeremiah does not explain
suffering in any satisfactory way, at least to me (no biblical book does), but
the book pledges that God will make a future and points the way towards
it. The tears of Jeremiah, God, the
people, and the earth itself, flow across the book, promising to awaken hearts
turned to stone by brutality…Jeremiah is a book of resilience, a work of
massive theological reinvention, a kind of survival manual for a destroyed
society.”[1]
That
survival is found in one thing – seeking the welfare (shalom, peace, wholeness,
and completeness in the Hebrew) of the city where exiles live. The Jeremiah I met in Vass embodied this in such
a remarkable way: she was angry at being displaced, and rightly so. She was exhausted, emotionally and
physically. She was bewildered, not
knowing what might come next. And yet,
in that place of trauma, she saw a stranger (me), and said something kind to
them. Hurricanes may rage, waters may rise, dams may breach, trees may fall, power
may fail, but kindness remains.
So
my friends, my challenge for us all in the wake of our own disaster is just
that: add some kindness to the world and our community. Help someone, not because you have to or
because you earn special favor from God, but because it’s the right thing to
do.
Another
prophet, Presbyterian pastor Fred Rogers, (who you may have known as Mr.
Rogers) reminds us of the need to be a helper, saying, “When I was a boy
and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look
for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of
"disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by
realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this
world.”
Let
us all be helpers. Let us seek shalom
and welfare, especially for the exiles displaced by hurricane Matthew. Donate. Volunteer. Rebuild. Pray. And never think that our troubles are so much
that we cannot help another person. We
will limp if we have to, the Jeremiah I met certainly did, but we will spread
shalom all the same.
Because
as both Jeremiahs show us, in the midst of disaster and trauma, God is building
a town called Welfare, where resilience and kindness show up in the most everyday
of places, even in Valenti’s. Amen.
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